


Poisoned

by PotionsMistressM



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-12
Updated: 2014-08-12
Packaged: 2018-02-12 22:20:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2126658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PotionsMistressM/pseuds/PotionsMistressM
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Belle learns the truth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poisoned

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Musical Muse challenge at LJ's onceuponaland. Inspired by Kelly Clarkson's "Judas."

It wasn't so bad at first. In those first few moments after she learned the truth, a strange kind of peace and calm stole over Belle. It wasn't that the revelation didn't shock her or hurt her; it was just that _nothing_ shocked or hurt her. In this strange state of suspended animation she was neither happy nor sad, neither loving nor hateful. She simply existed. She simply survived. In her more lucid moments she could even look in on herself with a detached, analytical distance. _There's something to be said for shock_ , she thought one afternoon as she went about her daily tasks feeling nothing.

She didn't confront him for several days after learning the truth. She wanted to be sure. She had to know that she wasn't just looking back on the past with that rosy haze that sometimes makes us gloss over even the worst of memories. But as she watched him, talked with him, went to his bed every night, she could not convince herself that she had somehow made a mistake or misinterpreted what she had found.

He had deceived her- willingly, knowingly, and completely voluntarily. He had used her emotions- her love and faith and trust- to manipulate her. He had betrayed her and professed his undying love in the very same breath.

The cruelest part wasn't that he'd lied to her so that he could kill Zelena. Though she would never advocate murder, at least that act would be understandable- still completely wrong, but understandable. The worst part wasn't that he'd spewed out all of those pretty words about love and trust while simultaneously doing something completely contradictory, or that he'd known exactly what he needed to say and do to make her most pliant to his will, though every time she thought that way it felt like her heart was about to contract so violently it would simply pull too far in on itself and implode in her chest. The thing that bothered her the most wasn't even that he had lied to her even as he asked her to spend the rest of her life with him.

The worst part was that he loved her.

People always assume that smart people like puzzles and riddles, but Belle had always hated them. Nothing in her life had ever made her as angry or frustrated as not knowing why. If there was a question she could not answer she preferred not to have it asked. Ever since she was a little girl, the failure to understand had been the only cause of tantrums or foul moods. Belle absolutely _could not stand_ not understanding things, and that was why love was the worst part of Rumplestiltskin's betrayal.

Because as hard as she tried to reconcile the two very disparate but equally true facts- that Rumplestiltskin had purposely, willfully, and knowingly done something to hurt her, and that he loved her - Belle couldn't come up with a solution. There was no reasonable explanation for his actions. It would have hurt less if he hadn't really cared about her. It would have been nothing but an awful and unforgivable slight if he was simply and solely the Dark One.

But she knew Rumplestiltskin. She knew the way his eyes crinkled at the corners and the way they warmed from a brown so dark it was almost black to a warm chocolate tone only when he was with her. She had watched his face light up upon sight of her, and she had felt his hands and lips on every inch of her body. She knew Rumplestiltskin, and she knew that he loved her.

And that was why it hurt so much. He loved her, and he was still willing to destroy her. That's what he'd done, after all. Proven everyone right, made her look like a fool, and crushed her in one swift, easily told lie. She had no way to process deception or betrayal of this magnitude; a lifetime of believing in the best of people had left her completely defenseless against this new and terrible assault.

When the shock wore off and the pain started creeping through her body like a poison, radiating from her heart through blood vessels that pricked and stung with its intrusion, there was nothing she could do but sob. Everything hurt, and there was no way to fix it. In those first moments of crippling agony, and many times over the ensuing weeks and months and years, Belle wished he'd just stabbed her with the damn dagger. A clean, cold blade through the heart would have hurt much, much less than the aftermath of his betrayal.


End file.
